He should have known better from their first encounter. The bullet travelled towards its target at atmospheric escape velocity, but the Swarm’s shielding slapped it back at him like a rubber ball hitting a wall. The bullet lost momentum from being deflected, and lost even more as it was slowed by Gabriel’s partially recovered shields, but struck him in the chest plate.
Multiple layers of carefully forged metallic alloy and nanotube plating interwoven with shock absorbent materials prevented the deflected bullet from penetrating Gabriel’s armour – saving his life – but it still struck him with enough force to knock him off his feet, and to knock the air out of his lungs.
Gabriel tried to get up, but the possessed Ogilvy got to him first, wrapping his fingers around Gabriel’s neck. The gorget armour protected Gabriel’s throat from behind crushed, but he found himself hoisted into the air, dangling like a puppet. He struggled to prise the fingers away from his throat, but the grip was unfathomably strong, too strong to undo.
The demonic Ogilvy stared at him with his burning coals for eyes as he tried to choke the life out of his former squad leader. Gabriel could see that the capillaries in his eyes had been darkened by whatever the swarm of alien particles had done to his body. Gabriel couldn’t help such attention to detail, even though it didn’t really help him.
In the corner of his HUD, Gabriel noticed his squad member’s position markers approaching. A figure came up behind the Swarm-possessed Ogilvy and jabbed a black rod into his back. The electric jolt shorted out the motors in Ogilvy’s armour, causing the possessed Ogilvy to stumble forward, dropping Gabriel in the process.
The enraged Ogilvy whirled round and swung his fist at Bale, getting up to confront him as Bale used the black widow’s baton as a club to fight back. As they fought, someone came up behind Gabriel and unlocked the clamps securing the bomb to his waist. With Bale distracting the possessed Ogilvy, Viker took the bomb and rushed up behind him, diving forwards and planting the bomb behind Ogilvy’s waist.
The clamps on the back of Ogilvy’s armour automatically snapped around the bomb, locking it in place. The Swarm-possessed Ogilvy wheeled round again in fury, smacking Viker in the side of the head. His helmet and neck armour protected him from having his neck broken, but he was knocked unconscious by the blow.
As Viker collapsed, Ogilvy turned back to Bale who tried to stab him with the spike end of the black widow’s baton. Ogilvy caught the baton and twisted it around to stab Bale through the weak point in his shoulder armour, impaling him. Bale’s bio-readings turned orange as the possessed Ogilvy took the baton by both ends and used it as a handle to lift Bale up, swing him around, and toss him into the air like a ragdoll.
Losing two squad members in as many seconds turned Gabriel’s vision red. Before Bale hit the ground, and before his opponent could react, Gabriel charged forwards and shoulder tackled Ogilvy around the thigh, leaping into the air in the same motion. Gabriel’s own genetically enhanced strength was superhuman, and combined with the strength provided by his armour, he was able to toss Ogilvy skyward the same way Bale had been thrown.
The possessed monster roared in fury as he went sailing through the air. Yet somehow he twisted in mid-air, landing on his feet with preternatural agility that no Human could achieve. Gabriel didn’t give him a chance to recover, drawing the sword and flicking the energy field switch as he charged forwards. The possessed Ogilvy snarled like a feral beast as Gabriel swung the blade at him, attempting to force him backwards off the edge of the dais.
The Swarm’s energy shielding didn’t merely block projectiles, it could also guard against the deadly energy field around Gabriel’s sword. Every time the blade came close, it was slapped back again with a flash of energy, protecting the host from being sliced apart. But it had the desired effect; Ogilvy was forced on to the back foot, backing away from the relentless attacks all the way back to the edge of the dais.
However, the Swarm had no intention of being forced back into the containment shield, and without warning, Ogilvy grabbed the xenotech blade between his palms. The Swarm-generated shielding protected his hands from being cut to pieces, and also generated a violent feedback loop, causing a sputtering whining sound as the two energy fields clashed.
Gabriel strained against his opponent’s superior strength, but the possessed Ogilvy was literally pushing the blade back at him. Then with a ferocious scream, Ogilvy snapped the blade with his armoured gauntlets, scattering the shards in all directions. Before Gabriel could react, Ogilvy had shoved him back down the steps of the dais and landed on top of him, unsheathing his combat claws before bringing them down towards Gabriel’s neck.
Gabriel put his hands out at the last second. With his left fist clenched, his remaining combat claws locked with Ogilvy’s claws whilst he grabbed Ogilvy’s other fist with his clawless right gauntlet. Gabriel was pinned on his back, locked in a two-handed grapple as a much stronger opponent bore down on him.
Gabriel lashed out with a kick to Ogilvy’s gut, hitting the button on his gravity belt and deactivating it. Ogilvy hardly flinched, instead pushing down even harder, trying to force his combat claws through the weak points under Gabriel’s gorget armour. The swarm of alien particles began to whirl even faster, forming a screaming, silver maelstrom that seemed to reflect the aggression of its host.
Even with the assistance of his strength-enhancing exoskeleton, Gabriel was straining to keep the deadly claws away from his throat, and without much success. His armour was an added layer of protection; but with enough force applied to the weak points it could be pierced. Gabriel’s strength was starting to fail. It felt like trying to bench press an armoured vehicle with a deadly incentive to lift closing in on his throat.
Was this how he was going to die?
11:09:73
The timer was ticking down towards zero, and they would both be annihilated when it did. So why not bring everything to a close right now? Just let the claws slide through armour’s weak points and into his neck? Once his jugular and carotid were severed, it would take about a minute for him to lose consciousness from blood loss, and a few more minutes for his heart to stop. Once his pulse ceased, the bomb’s timer would skip to t-minus 00:00:01.
They would die together.
Through the swirling silver cloud of particles, Gabriel could see the ghostly pale face of his former squad member, his eyes turned black by the Swarm’s possession, and his mouth slowly twisting into a sickly, triumphant grin. Gabriel could hardly make out the face of his soon-to-be killer, but he could vaguely make out the grin.
It reminded him a little of Rose’s grin.
For some reason, that memory was what flashed through his mind whilst staring his own death in the face: his daughter’s mischievous smile when she’d poked him in the nose on his way out the door. If he died, would she understand why he wasn’t coming home? Would Orion or Violet or Leo understand?
Of course they wouldn’t.
The pain in Gabriel’s muscles was subsumed by a much more biting pang of emotion: the vision of four pairs of bright green eyes, identical to his own, brimming with tears at being told that daddy was never coming home. Aster would be grief-stricken, but at least she would understand; the children wouldn’t.
In fact, it would be worse than that. When the antimatter bomb detonated, the energy released by the explosion would annihilate all matter within a cubic kilometre or more. There would be nothing left of him to bury, no remains to be collected, not even a piece of his armour over which Aster and the children could mourn. All trace of him would be obliterated, with nothing but an empty casket at his funeral.